You can enter pretty much every mobile game now and expect to find that the game has a seasonal event. And that's the problem. When they first started they seemed to be an amazing way to bring a dead videogame back to life. Imagine, getting extra rewards for simply doing regular in-game actions. Seems amazing! Or is it?
History
The seasonal events trend was started by Fortnite with its seasons which typically lasted about ten weeks. Along with changing the game's design and cover, and adding new skins and storylines, the seasons also had season quests. Season quests are quite simple; complete tasks by doing regular in-game actions, earn points and win prizes. While you can unlock certain prizes for free, the majority of the prizes come with the Seasonal battle pass which costs 950 vbux (about €9).
New Games Pick up the trend
With all the money Epic Games was making from season events other games realised that they could have their own seasons. Subway surfers began a new event called the world tour. So every month they started creating themed maps for the new country that you travelled to. They also had season quests but with two major differences. Instead of completing tasks, you would instead have to find special diamond points and there was no battle pass, all the rewards were free.
Playrix also decided to try and have their own seasonal event, so they created an event called The Professors Experiments, it was quite similar to Fortnite's season quests, you completed tasks, earned points and won prizes. There was also a pass called the Golden Pass to get better rewards including skins for your plane and helicopter, however, unlike other games, The Professors Experiments only happened very occasionally and only lasted for a month. However, after sales of their Golden Pass flew through the roof, Playrix removed The Professors Experiments and brought in fully themed seasonal adventures that happened all month, every month. After this, Playrix introduced Season Adventures to all but one of their other games. What's more, after about one and a half years of completely original Seasonal Events, Township has announced that they will start reusing their old
Season Events leave the mobile phone
After this, season events come to more games including rocket league, they even come to the Minecraft spin-off game, Minecraft Dungeons. Suddenly, season events are everywhere with no sign of going away. For me, what once seemed like a cool way for games to bring back players has turned into a boring and annoying constant that has almost ruined some of the games. Season events have the potential to return to being a cool game revived if maybe they started making them only happen every few months.
How do you think Season Events should work?
All the time!
Occasionally, lasting only a month.
Written by Tom Conmy
Excellent article. Thanks for sharing.